Until Margaret Thatchers government threw away the minimum room size laws we had decent accommodation here. Even Victorian terraces had 2 downstairs rooms in addition to some sort of separate room kitchen. The upstairs rooms usually allowed you to have a bed AND room to be able to actually open either a wardrobe, a chest of drawers or both!
An ex boss of mine lived in Tokyo, Japan for 18 years and then returned here with his family around 8 years ago. Tokyo was the butt of jokes for years in the UK about what horrible lives the Japanese had due to lack of space and tiny houses. He and his family were horrified by the tiny houses in the UK and the almost non existent sound insulation in them, which left no privacy.
Their 3 bed UK house here was significantly smaller than their 2 bed flat in Japan and these were not rich people by any means, so would not have lived high end in Japan.
A few years back I went to view a house in the South West UK, described as having "a double bedroom and a separate dressing area". There was a small double bed in the bedroom, but you could only walk around 2 sides of it as it had to be rammed up against 2 of the walls. It had to have a separate "dressing area" as there was no room at all for either drawers or wardrobe.
The dressing area was fantastic.... it was a tiny landing area at the top of the stairs where it was easy to fall down them if you mis-stepped. The family living there was using that dangerous area for a child and cot as the cot would not fit in the "double bedroom". This was not in a slum area - this is new builds from around 1990 to 2005 ish.
Funny enough,like the Canadians, I don't sit out in the garden in winter either, its not that warm in the UK!